Eve, the Once and Future Mother of All
by Canadianslacker
Summary: My first Fanfic although I have been writing for a LONG time, PLEASE R&R!!!
1. Kyrie Escapes

A gust of wind shook the boughs of the maple trees outside the North Dorm of Saint Joan's Boarding School for Girls, an enormous building easily mistaken for an old, elaborate convent, with its ornate carvings of gargoyles and depictions of Biblical stories hewn into the slabs of gray stone.  
  
The moon's glow, casting pearly shadows on the grounds, was the only illumination on campus… except the glow of an anbaric light in a dorm room on the second floor, where the inhabitants were swiftly executing a plan to escape.  
  
"Kyrie, you can't just leave!" a redheaded girl hissed, her daemon frowning disapprovingly on her shoulder, temporarily an owl. Attired in a lacy nightgown and perched cross-legged on her bed, she shook her head in despair. "What shall I do without you?"  
  
Kyrie, a blonde-haired girl of thirteen with piercing hazel eyes, grinned mischieviously. "For one thing, Julia," she whispered, "you won't get into trouble when I'm gone." She rifled through her drawers and pulled out a sweater, which she threw into her small rucksack along with a few items of extra clothing, purloined food from the Kitchens, and a majestic velvet drawstring bag that looked suspiciously out of place among the runaway's other, simple possessions.  
  
Julia shrugged. "I don't mind all that much," she confessed. "You always make this dull place more fun, like the time you substituted that big photograph of Miss Mullins without her wig for the pull-out map in Geography." She held a hand over her mouth to suppress her giggles, and sighed. "Whatever shall I tell the mistresses tomorrow morning when you're not here?"  
  
The other girl buckled her coat. "Tell them I was called away on very important business," she said airily, then caught the despondent expression on Julia's face. She hugged her roommate. "Cheer up, Jules," she murmured as the girl's daemons, both minks, wound around each other in a fond, friendly goodbye. "I have to go, I asked the alethiometer."  
  
Julia nodded resignedly and vowed to cover for her friend. She watched passively from her bed, cuddling her daemon, as Kyrie swung the leather rucksack over her shoulder, unlatched the window, and began the perilous climb to the ground.  
  
Clutching the stone head of Saint Michael, she lowered herself, one inch at a time, blindly feeling for footholds in the dark. Her daemon clung, shaking, to her shoulder as a bat, and gasped in her ear. "Are you sure this is worth it?"  
  
Biting her lip, Kyrie replied, "Oh, Khan! I'm Lyra Silvertongue's daughter, it will take a lot more than a drop from a stuffy boarding school to kill us." They were brave words to disguise fear, and both human and daemon knew it.  
  
Suddenly, her foot touched firm earth, and Kyrie breathed a sigh of thanks. With a pitiful squeak, Khan fell off her shoulder and into the grass, becoming a sleek, smooth black cat with green eyes. "Where do you suppose we'll find this gyptian?" he asked, somewhat reproachfully, as if he had nothing to do with running away.  
  
Walking quickly and silently, Khan slinking next to her, she replied, "the alethiometer said the gyptians are camping for the night on Rider's River, but I en't keen on disturbing Ma Costa's sleep."  
  
They had reached the town, and were forced to walk on the sidewalk. They kept in the shadows, ignoring the drunks and brassy women. Kyrie adapted an air as if she belonged to the darkness, as if the lady leaning against the streetlamp and the hardened man in the alleyway should respect her. She had developed a talent for shifting into anyone she needed to be, changing attitudes like changing clothes.  
  
Striding confidently, they reached the train station, bought a ticket and boarded the train, sitting in a compartment with a boy a little older than Kyrie, whose daemon had settled into a hawk. The boy seemed to be asleep, yet the hawk was watching Khan closely out of narrowed eyes. Irritated, Khan became a small tiger and growled warningly.  
  
The boy looked up. "Who are you?" he asked.  
  
Taken aback by his forwardness, Kyrie scowled. "What if I en't going to answer that without knowing who you are?" she demanded furiously.  
  
He laughed, his amber eyes bright with amusement, matching his those of his daemon. "You must be the girl Lord Daire said was coming, he warned us you were fierce. Your mum was Lyra, right?"  
  
Kyrie looked quickly at Khan, who returned her gaze with an unspoken message: You can trust him. "Yeah, my mum was Lyra," she said. "You're a gyptian, then?" The boy nodded, and Kyrie saw his olive complexion, born of rush waters and marshes, tanned by the sun. "But your hair…"  
  
He ran a hand embarrassedly through his short, blonde hair, which contrasted wildly with his swarthy skin. "I'm only half gyptian," he confessed. "I'm Linder, and this is Blaise."  
  
"Kyrie, Khan," Kyrie returned, nodding. "What do you mean Lord Daire said I was coming?"  
  
Linder leaned forward. "There's something big that's going to happen soon, us gyptians all know it. It's written in the earth, right? And Lord Daire called in this witch friend of his to help him find out stuff about it, and then during last byanroping – that's a gyptian meeting – he told all the gyptians that Lyra Silvertongue's daughter was coming soon. So you're really important."  
  
"I thought so," Kyrie said slowly, with her mother's easy acceptance of admiration as her due. "Listen, I'm going to go see Ma Costa. She's real old, but she was my mum's friend. Before mum died, she told me to go to the gyptians cause they'd help me, cause I guess she knew about this thing that's gonna happen. But when the courts found out mum was dead, they put me in boarding school instead, and I've had to wait almost three months before I could escape."  
  
The train screeched to a stop. "Well, you're in luck," Linder said as they got off. "Cause I'm on Ma Costa's boat. Billy Costa, the one who your mum rescued from Bølvangar, is my father's half brother, and that makes Ma Costa my step-grandmother."  
  
They walked for a while in silence through a small village and then through the woods, until they reached a clearing where the grass broke off suddenly into water, and a group of boats were tied to the shoreline. A bonfire blazed vibrantly, and fiddles played as women danced gaily with tambourines and men in plaid shirts ate fen-eel and roared with laughter.  
  
Kyrie stepped shyly into the firelight, and suddenly, the music stopped. A hush pervaded the formerly joyous evening, and then the murmurs began.  
  
"Lord of the waters, but she looks just like Lyra!"  
  
"By the powers, she's come, she's come."  
  
A tall man with an overwhelming aura of authority and a kind smile stood and opened his arms. "On behalf of the western gyptians, I welcome ye, daughter of Lyra Silvertongue."  
  
Kyrie blushed, and Khan curled into a self-conscious ball in her pocket. "Thank-you," she said, aware of every man, woman, and child staring at her in disbelief.  
  
"That's Lord Daire, my father," Linder whispered in her ear. "Let's find Ma Costa." With a laugh, the fiddling started up again, and the gyptians returned to their merriment. Kyrie followed Linder through the crowds to a red silk tent, where he stepped inside. Hesitant, and surprised and embarrassed to find that Linder was a gyptian prince, she waited until he came back out, smiling, and beckoned her in.  
  
She brushed through the orange scarves that hung in the doorway, and stood trembling as she saw the enormous, tough woman she remembered as a baby turn around and freeze in utter astonishment. "Lyra?" she whispered.  
  
"No, Mum," a voice from the shadows murmured. "Her daughter."  
  
The next moment, Kyrie was enveloped in a crushing hug, released for a moment so that Ma Costa could examine her face long enough to burst into tears and embrace her again. "Oh, child, ye came! And en't ye the pretty one, just like Lyra…" at the mention of Lyra's name, the wise old face crumpled up once more. "To think, my baby, dead! Why?" She paused, pulled herself together, and set her brow. "You're going to go see Daire," she announced firmly. "Tony, take her to Lord Daire."  
  
A powerful, dark-faced man stepped out of the shadows. "So, gal," he said kindly, "you're Lyra's daughter. I reckon you'll be beyond belief, too."  
  
Unsure of whether to accept it as a compliment or protest it as an insult, Kyrie merely smiled. As Tony escorted her across the busy clearing, she noticed that Linder was surrounded by sensual gyptian girls, and was clearly a unanimously adored flirt with devilishly good looks. As Kyrie watched, he laughed with, sweetly teased, and slyly seduced each girl that stood, swooning, by him.  
  
Suddenly, they had arrived at a round wooden building, and Tony knocked on the door. 


	2. The Journey Begins

"Enter," a man's voice boomed, and Kyrie walked in. "Hello, Tony. Ah, Lyra Silvertongue's daughter," Lord Daire said, standing. He was sitting at a long table with another man, an old man, who smiled empathetically at the girl. She smiled back nervously. "What's your name?" Lord Daire asked gently.  
  
"Kyrie," she replied.  
  
"Well, Kyrie, sit down," the tall man said as Tony Costa left. "You're in good hands. We were all friends of Lyra's, and this here's Lord Faa. Your mum must have told ye about him."  
  
Kyrie nodded, somewhat in awe of the ancient man, who had led a group of gyptians, Farder Coram, and her mother to save the children at Bølvangar. "No need to be frightened," John Faa laughed softly, his crow daemon tilting her head, almost smiling. He reminded her of the man she had known as Farder Coram, a good friend of her mother's, whose beautiful cat daemon had piqued her curiosity as a child. He passed away when she was three, and she couldn't bring herself to look at his body, because the silky cat was gone forever.  
  
"Now, child, we need to know exactly what's happened to ye since your mum's death," Lord Daire said, getting right to the point. "If we're going to find out what we can do about the change in the Dust, then we need your story. And please tell the truth, for I know that your mother could relate the most wondrous stories when she wanted to evade fact. As a boy, I listened to her tales and believed every word, so talented she was. Right, Kyrie, start at the beginning."  
  
Kyrie took a deep breath, and her story spilled out. "My mum was fourteen when she had me, I don't know my father. She said he lives in another world. Mum gave me her alethiometer when I was five or so and asked me if I could read it, and I could. She started asking me all these questions about the Church and Dust right before she died three months ago. I don't know why she died. One morning I woke up, and Pantalaimon, her daemon, wasn't there. I en't stupid though, I know someone killed her, and it has to be cause of the whole Dust thing."  
  
Lord Daire nodded. "Do ye know about 'the whole Dust thing'?"  
  
Kyrie knit her brow. "My mother was Eve, right? And my father was Adam, and cause they chose to lose their innocence, everything that the Church was trying to mess up returned to its natural order. The Church doesn't like original sin, so they were trying to keep Eve from Falling again. But it's worse now; I know that from asking the alethiometer. When my mum died, Dust disappeared altogether. Someone's got to fix it now, or else something real bad is gonna happen, en't it?"  
  
John Faa sighed. "We've been fighting with the Church for years. They suppress and hold back, and we're wild; we nurture, and grow." He looked tired. "We're going to have to disguise you as a gyptian, like we did Lyra, so the landlubbers won't find you. They'll be looking for you, especially the Church. They trust you less than your mother."  
  
"Why?" Kyrie asked, bewildered. "I don't like them, sure, but I en't dangerous to them?"  
  
John Faa shook his head. "Yes, you are. Your mother lives on in you, bright and deceptive and quick. Your soul is the same witch-oil as hers."  
  
"Kyrie, you're young, and we are old. It is the duty of the old to protect the young, and for now, I would like to protect ye. There are hard days to come, hard days for everyone. Tonight, go join the dances. Lyra would bring ye as a youngun to our revelries when ye were small, so we taught ye the steps. Ask Ma Costa for proper dress, you'll be needing it anyway if ye want to pass as one of us," Lord Daire said, and opened the door. "I'll be checking in on you, Kyrie Silvertongue."  
  
As Kyrie walked back through the festivities across the clearing, Khan changed into a hawk, like most gyptians' daemons, but even then he was different: more fiery, and his eyes were an intense green instead of the gyptian amber. When she reached the tent, Ma Costa gave her clothing and shooed the men out so she could change.  
  
When she emerged, Linder's lips parted and he grinned mischieviously. Kyrie wore a loose, thin white blouse, a leather corset, gold hoop earrings, and a long red skirt with lacy petticoats underneath. Her feet were bare, and Khan the hawk circled above her head. Hands on her hips, she demanded, "Well?"  
  
Linder nodded approvingly and took her hand, leading her to the bonfire dances, which swept her up in a whirl of untamed color and bright marsh fire.  
  
The slow rocking of Kyrie's hammock leisurely brought her to her senses. Khan lay curled around her neck as an ebony ermine, and her rucksack hung from a tack on the wall. Bright sunshine streamed into the cabin, and she woke her daemon.  
  
Above deck, Ma Costa greeted her warmly with breakfast. "We're out in the middle of Rider's River," she explained. "No landlubber can spot ye here, so you're safe for a while. Tony, Billy, and Linder are out for a while speaking with Lord Daire, and from what I've heard, you'll be journeying."  
  
"Journeying?" Kyrie stopped abruptly, suddenly excited.  
  
Ma Costa sighed. "That ye will, my child. Though, if I had my way, I would never let ye out of my sight… It en't right, a gal your age, to be going off by yourself just because of a witch's prophesy."  
  
"Witch's prophesy?" Kyrie echoed again, thoroughly intrigued.  
  
"Well, you'll have to ask Lord Daire and his witch about that," she answered, just as cryptically. "We'll be tying up in a bit, so go play for a while before the men want to talk to ye."  
  
Kyrie rested her arms on the boat's railing and stared out at the vast river. The riverbank was nearing, an isolated, lonely spot, with Lord Daire's boat already there; she could just make out the five figures on the misty horizon. She turned to the gull next to her. "Khan, a journey sounds like a good idea. I know we have to do something to get Dust back."  
  
"The Church will try to stop us," he replied. "They consider us rebels, like Lyra."  
  
"Everyone says I look exactly like her. They say I act exactly like her. And the alethiometer…"  
  
The night before, Kyrie had come back from the dances, unable to sleep. She reached into her rucksack and pulled out the velvet bag, then withdrew the golden compass with the quivering needles and intricate pictures. Smoothly falling into a trance, she simply turned the knob to the Madonna, but the alethiometer seemed to know that what question she was asking.  
  
Khan watched the alethiometer's response in his cat form, tail swishing. The needle moved from the Madonna to the baby to the angel. Suddenly, the long, silver needle that had never moved before pointed to the hourglass, and the whole sequence repeated until Kyrie took a deep breath. Khan waited for her translation.  
  
"It's impossible," she told him wryly. "I can't be reading it right."  
  
"Why? You've never read it wrong before."  
  
"But Khan… the Madonna stands for Lyra, the baby stands for childhood, the angel for an actual angel, and I think that the silver needle pointing to the hourglass means that Time is going to go backward."  
  
Khan unhurriedly stood, stretched, and yawned daintily. "So?"  
  
Exasperated, Kyrie picked him up and shook him, ignoring the dizziness in her head also as she did so. "Time can't go backward! Mum can never be alive again, much less a child! You en't stupid, Khan, can't you see I must be reading it wrong?"  
  
Khan changed into a mouse and slipped out of her hold. "Calm down. Everything's possible. It may seem unlikely, but it's possible." Becoming a hawk, he flew up to the deck, and Kyrie had no choice but to follow him. They had arrived at the riverbank; Kyrie stepped off the boat, curtseying quickly to John Faa, Lord Daire, Linder, and the two Costa men.  
  
Billy Costa, who she hadn't seen yet, was a young man in his mid-twenties. He stepped forward involuntarily when he saw Kyrie, his mind leaping to the assumption that she was Lyra, his friend and rescuer when he was in Bølvangar thirteen years before, before he realized the impossibility of his hope. Lyra was dead.  
  
"Kyrie, child, I'm afraid we need to talk to ye again," Lord Daire said. "We're waiting for a friend of mine, a witch, who will explicate the situation." He looked to the sky, and Kyrie followed his gaze, watching a shadowy shape approach. "Here she comes."  
  
When the young woman alighted from her spray of cloud-pine, Kyrie noted how ferocious she looked in her tattered, yet regal robes, her bare arms powerful and her bare feet light on the cold ground. The girl also caught the indecipherable look Lord Daire gave the witch, brimming with mixed emotions.  
  
"Ruta Skadi, Queen of the Fire Forest clan," he announced, and the witch and her bluethroat daemon nodded gracefully.  
  
"I have come to help explain the troubles in the worlds," the woman began. "Lyra Belaqua, called Lyra Silvertongue for defeating Iofur Raknison with her swift words, was known to the witches as Eve, Mother of All. Ever since the first Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden, humans have been flawed individuals, which the Church regarded as a problem. They say that everyone is a sinner after they reach puberty and their daemon settles, and they were determined to change that, hoping to become God-like.  
  
"When the worlds became aware that history would repeat itself and that Eve had been reincarnated into the form of Lyra Silvertongue, all humans were split in two: One group, the Church and its followers, were determined to keep Eve from Falling when she was tempted. The other group was content with being imperfect; realizing that to be mortal is to be easily tempted, and wanted Eve to give in to the serpent, played by Dr. Mary Malone, a former nun.  
  
"The two groups began a lengthy battle in order to sway the outcome of the temptation. Mrs. Coulter, Lyra's mother, was sly and corrupted, starting with the Church but finishing with the rebels because of a newfound love for her daughter. Lord Asriel, Lyra's father, headed the rebel group against the Church, and our witch clan was among his supporters. We pledged to protect Lyra and Will, the carrier of the Subtle Knife, with our lives, and succeeded. She gave into temptation and slept with Will, losing her innocence and securing all humans as sinners, while Mrs. Coulter and Lord Asriel killed Metatron, the angel who had taken on the role of King of Heaven. Kyrie, you are the daughter of Adam and Eve, then known as Lyra and Will."  
  
Ruta Skadi paused. "Questions?" she asked.  
  
"What does Dust have to do with this?" John Faa asked. "I'm sorry, I may just be getting old, but you haven't mentioned Dust. And is it true that Dust has disappeared altogether since Lyra's death?"  
  
Sergi, Ruta Skadi's bluethroat daemon, answered for the witch. "Dust is attracted to man's impurity. It is conscious matter that avoids children before their daemons have settled because they are innocent, untouched. Before Lyra as Eve accepted temptation, the natural scheme of the universe was interrupted, and Dust was being repelled by the Church's quest for lifelong innocence and perfection. When she slept with Will, everything was returned to the way it should be, and Dust went back to raining gently on humans with settled daemons.  
  
"However, as I'm sure you all have guessed, Lyra was murdered. The witches believe it was by the Church, whose agents are now searching for Will, who holds the remnants of the Subtle Knife. They wish to kill both Adam and Eve, destroy the alethiometer and the Subtle Knife, and start again from the beginning. There is a new ruler in Heaven, the Son of God, and his name is Jesus. He has promised the Church a flood that will destroy all rebels, promised that he will save the Church and everyone who swears allegiance to their cause."  
  
"Like Noah's Ark," Kyrie whispered, numb. She looked around and saw that John Faa, Lord Daire, Tony, Billy, and Linder were just as shaken by the inundation of knowledge.  
  
Ruta Skadi nodded. "Bright child, hear this witch's prophesy: Eve has Fallen twice and will be tempted again. Serefina Pekkala dreamt that Lyra came to her and told her this, and it is my duty to tell you."  
  
Khan, a mink, dug his claws lightly into Kyrie's skin, and she knew that he was reminding her of the alethiometer's counsel earlier.  
  
"Now, I must leave," Ruta Skadi declared majestically, grasping her cloud- pine. She plucked a fresh flower from her hair and handed it to Kyrie. "Use this to call me if you ever need help. Lord Daire, you must tell Kyrie what she has to do. Farewell." She slowly rose into the air and flew into the hazy sky.  
  
Lord Daire sighed. "Kyrie, ye are the only one who can find your father and take the Subtle Knife before the Church can find either Will or the shards of the knife. There are a few windows left, although the witches are fast closing them to stop Dusk from leaking out of the worlds and disappearing forever; the window between here and Will's world is only a day's journey away on foot. As much as this is against my will, and as much as I wish I could shield ye longer, I see no other choice but to let ye go."  
  
Khan changed into cat form and began purring. Kyrie sprang to her feet. "You en't joking?" she demanded, forgetting her trepidation of Lord Daire and John Faa. "I can really go?"  
  
John Faa nodded wearily. "Be careful, child. There are those who are watching out for you, but there are those who will harm you."  
  
Kyrie glanced in Linder's direction. Blaise was ruffling her feathers sullenly, and the boy's eyes were dark.  
  
Billy Costa noticed the gyptian prince's discontent also. "Speak, Linder, if you feel the need to voice an opinion. You are an adult and we will listen to you as such."  
  
"I want to go with Kyrie," Linder said determinedly. "She shouldn't go alone."  
  
Lord Daire flinched almost imperceptibly, "Ye are my only child, Linder," he said gruffly. "My heart will ache with missing ye if ye leave, but it is your decision. When your daemon settled, ye began to owe responsibility to yourself first and foremost, so choose your path wisely."  
  
Linder stood. "I will miss you too, my Lord." The men rose to their feet as Lord Daire embraced his son.  
  
"You should leave immediately," John Faa said, and for the first time, Kyrie noticed how very old he was. "The Church is gaining every second and the landlubbers are searching for Kyrie, so I would not hesitate if I were you. The window is behind Rider's Falls, farther down the river."  
  
Kyrie ran back to the boat to say goodbye to Ma Costa and pick up her rucksack, then joined Linder. "Ready?" she asked softly, and he nodded.  
  
The men watched the fierce girl and the hard golden boy melt into the mists, and Tony Costa sighed. "It was difficult to talk to her, when she looked that much like Lyra. In fact, I can't tell the difference between them except for her eyes."  
  
"She has her father's eyes," John Faa said, pensively. "But she's Lyra all over again." He turned to Lord Daire, who was staring into space. "You didn't tell Linder who his mother is, did you?"  
  
The gyptian king shook his head. "He knows she en't a gyptian, but that's all. I told him she died when he was little. Some things are better left unsaid."  
  
"Now, I don't know if that was wise of you," replied the elderly man. "It might have been difficult for you, but the boy should know."  
  
"Do you think they'll find the window before it's closed?" Billy wondered aloud. The others shrugged nervously, and headed back to their boats to immerse themselves in the comfort of the wandering, nomadic life they led like their forefathers. 


	3. A Different World

Meanwhile, Kyrie and Linder were walking steadily towards Rider's Falls. Khan bounded ahead along the dirt trail through the woods as a small mountain lion, energetic with freedom.  
  
"Why did you want to come?" Kyrie inquired curiously.  
  
"I got bored, for one," Linder said, laughing. "But really, I felt something pulling at me, like… I dunno… like I'm supposed to come with you. Especially cause of the pairs."  
  
"What do you mean by 'cause of the pairs'?"  
  
Linder ruffled his light hair. "Like, your mum and Will. They were a pair. And so were Adam and Eve. And Baruch and Balthamos, Lyra must have told you about them."  
  
Kyrie frowned; she was sure she had never heard the names before.  
  
Her companion looked surprised. "They were angels, best friends, that helped Will find Lyra when she was in the cave with Mrs. Coulter."  
  
"It's strange how you know so much about my life and my parents' lives," Kyrie said quietly. Suddenly, she felt a tug at her heart. "Khan!" She gasped, and ran a little ways down the trail, where Khan, as a wolf, bared his teeth and snarled at the huge, shimmering outline of a man in front of him. "Stop it!" Kyrie yelled at the angel, who was curling his lip in disgust at Khan, making bored efforts to hurt the daemon.  
  
Lyra had told Kyrie once about angels, and her mother's words flashed through her head now. "Angels are merely age-old, wise spirits. They are powerful, but they can be hurt or killed, just like mortals. Some are rebels, some are associated with the Church, but they all desire one thing: a body."  
  
"Stop it," Kyrie repeated desperately as the angel attempted to grab Khan. He snapped at the hand, snarled, and crouched low. "Go ahead," Kyrie cried wordlessly at her daemon, infuriated with the angel's scornful manner, ready to bite him herself but recognizing that it would be useless.  
  
Khan understood that Kyrie was supporting him, and sprang at the angel's throat at the same time Blaise dove to scratch at his eyes. With a resounding yell, the angel shook off the animals and leapt into the skies, vanishing almost instantly.  
  
Khan dashed to Kyrie and jumped into her arms, transforming rapidly into an ocelot, shaking, and Kyrie cuddled him, held him close. "I wouldn't have held out alone," Khan whispered.  
  
Upset, Kyrie turned to Linder, who was soothing Blaise, hiding her fright so that he wouldn't think she was easily scared. "Where do you think the angel went?"  
  
Linder narrowed his eyes. "I en't certain, but I bet he's going to go tell the Church where we are. We better get to the window soon."  
  
They trudged on, apprehensive, watching for more danger, but none came. The wind rustled the leaves of the trees towering over them, the river a little ways off flowed gently, and night descended on the woods. It became too dark to walk any farther, and Linder and Kyrie settled for the night, each under their own blanket.  
  
"You don't act thirteen," Linder murmured as they lay on the warm earth.  
  
"I've had to grow up fast," the girl returned sleepily, Khan curled next to her as a small bear. "How old are you, anyways?"  
  
"Fifteen," Linder answered.  
  
"When did your daemon settle?"  
  
"Not long ago. I think a month or two," the boy replied. "I didn't want her to be a hawk for a while, I thought I'd rather have a tiger or something like that. But I guess the gyptian in me took over."  
  
Kyrie raised her head. "You said you were only half gyptian?"  
  
Linder sighed. "My dad told me that my mum died when I was a baby, I en't sure how. He never wanted to talk about her, but she wasn't a gyptian." He longed for a mother, but he had never let anyone know about the emptiness he felt. He had to be strong.  
  
"What was she, then?" Kyrie asked carefully, interested but aware of the prince's discomfort.  
  
"I… I dunno," he said, confused.  
  
Kyrie snuggled closer to Khan and closed her eyes. "It's okay." They lay in silence until sleep overtook them.  
  
Sunlight spattered the ground and invaded Kyrie's peaceful slumber. She rubbed her eyes and sat up, tumbling her chagrined daemon to the ground. He became a porcupine, bursting out in quills in annoyance at his sleep being disturbed so abruptly.  
  
"Oh, get off your high horse, Khan," Kyrie laughed.  
  
"It isn't a pleasant way to be woken up," Khan returned haughtily. Linder was nowhere around, so Kyrie got out a chocolate bar and devoured half of it hungrily before he returned, his firm torso tanned and gleaming wet as he put on his shirt.  
  
He shook his head vigorously to clear it of water and grinned. "Hey," he greeted her. "I just swam quickly before you woke up. Are you ready?"  
  
"Yeah," Kyrie said, and they started off, Khan waddling behind until he became a robin and flew with Blaise, soaring in the warm, fresh breeze. The two daemons were soon engaged in conversation while their humans walked without a word, too distracted by Blaise and Khan's chatter to talk to each other.  
  
By mid-afternoon, the roaring of the Falls could be heard in the distance. As the sun began to sink on the horizon, Kyrie and Linder had reached the monstrous waterfall, and hopped cautiously from stone to stone across the churning water to reach the cave behind it.  
  
"There en't nothing here," Linder said despairingly, but Kyrie shook her head and walked around the small space, emitting a gasp of surprise as she found herself looking through a waist-high square into another world.  
  
Immediately, she crawled through, leaving Linder blinking in astonishment, as all of a sudden she was gone. But soon he joined her, looking around in wonder. They were standing in a park by a small pond, people hurriedly passing by on the sidewalk, buildings rising on all sides.  
  
"That's a car!" Kyrie exclaimed eagerly. Lyra had told her about cars once, turning her adventures in other worlds into bedtime stories for her young daughter.  
  
Warily, Kyrie crossed the road with Linder, almost laughing in delight at the new sights. She remembered that her mother had told her that in her father's world, no one had daemons, but nothing prepared her for the shock of seeing living people without the accompanying animal forms.  
  
"Girls wear trousers here," Linder observed, watching a pretty brunette walk by until Kyrie scolded him, amused. "Where does your father live?"  
  
"I dunno," the girl replied, feeling out of place in her plaid school skirt and disoriented with not knowing where she was. She fumbled in her bag and brought out the alethiometer. Linder watched, interested, as she slipped into a subconscious world and twisted the knobs. "He lives in flat A2 of that apartment building," she announced after she fell back to reality, preparing to walk in the door.  
  
Linder grabbed her arm. "You can't just barge in there!" He exclaimed.  
  
Kyrie's eyes flashed. "Why not?"  
  
Linder shook his head. "They'll have doormen and such and they'll want to know why you're there. What are you supposed to say? 'Well, I'm going to go see my father, but he doesn't know he has a daughter yet, because I've been living in another world all my life.' It en't going to work."  
  
Kyrie rolled her eyes. "Don't be ridiculous," she returned, giving the evil eye to a passerby who stared incredulously at the hawk on Linder's shoulder. Khan was again a mouse in her pocket, so they were indistinguishable from any other person in this world. She pushed through the revolving door and right past the doorman, who rushed up and politely tapped her on the shoulder.  
  
"Excuse me, miss, but I don't believe I've seen you here before," he said meaningfully.  
  
Wiping her face of all expression except for complete innocence, Kyrie smiled. "I'm sorry, I should have introduced myself, but I'm in such a hurry. I'm in town only for a little while, and I invited my uncle to come see a play with me that starts in half an hour. I'm dreadfully late, so if you'll excuse me and my brother?" she asked gently but firmly, taking charge of the situation and smiling kindly at the doorman, and hurried Linder through and into the elevator.  
  
They reached the flat and rang the doorbell several times, but no one was there. Unperturbed, Kyrie drew a bobby pin out of her bag and set to work on the lock. With a satisfyingly click, the door swung open and a devastating scene met their eyes.  
  
Will Parry, bearer of the Subtle Knife, son of Stanislaus Grumman, Adam, Father of All, brave, confident, loving, and passionate, and twenty-seven years old, lay dead on the floor in his living room. 


	4. Search for Subtlety

With a sharp cry, Kyrie fell to her knees next to her father's body, shivering, tears streaming down her cheeks. "No, it en't fair, it en't fair," she whispered hoarsely. Linder picked up a ring from the ground with the Church's symbol on it, and looked away from the girl, unable to observe her pain. Khan was a clumsy puppy with big eyes, a servant's daemon, demonstrating their humility.  
  
When Kyrie had pulled herself together, she cleared her throat and stood up, her voice deadly calm. "Where's the knife?"  
  
They tore apart the flat, searching desperately for the pieces, but found none. "He must have hid them," Linder said. "He must have had some idea that those murderers were coming, then hid the pieces. His stuff was put back neatly, but it was out of place, so they must have rummaged around, but I don't think they found anything."  
  
Kyrie sat tensely on the sofa, thinking. Abruptly she ran out of the room, Khan close at her heels, and opened every closet door, went in, then moved on to the next. When she had gone into all the closets, she went into the cupboards, then the bedrooms, but seemed disappointed when she paused.  
  
Linder watched her, wondering if she had gone mad. Khan tugged at her skirt with his teeth, and she followed him into the bathroom, and gave a shout of triumph. Linder rushed in to find her standing in the bathtub. "Are you insane?" He demanded.  
  
"No, look!" Kyrie exclaimed, and he joined her reluctantly. Standing in the bathtub was the only way anyone could see the window that Will had cleverly cut, and Linder immediately jumped through onto the top of a hill in an uninhabited valley in another world. He looked down, noticing the fresh earth that filled in a hole that had been dug shortly before. Kneeling, he burrowed with his hands until he retrieved a dirty velvet bag, exactly like the one that held the alethiometer. He climbed back into the bathtub and solemnly handed it to Kyrie.  
  
They went to Will's kitchen table and sat down, and with trembling hands Kyrie shook out the contents of the bag.  
  
Shards of metal, some bright and clear, some colored and mysteriously cloudy, shone on the table, along with a wooden hilt with a gold angel on either side. "Wow," Kyrie breathed. "But if the knife's been broken ever since Will left my Mum, how did Will cut that window?"  
  
"He must have done it with one of the pieces…" Linder said. "It probably took a really long time, sawing through bit by bit… the window felt rough around the edges."  
  
"What d'you mean?" Kyrie scooped the remnants of the subtle knife back into the bag, tied it tightly, and put it in her rucksack.  
  
"It was as if the sides of the window were ragged. The air was torn," Linder tried to explain.  
  
"Sounds like you understand the knife," Kyrie said thoughtfully. "We better leave, it en't safe for us to stay here cause of the police. Someone's gonna notice that Will's gone, and come searching for him." Khan, a cat, hissed, arching his back at the door, and Kyrie paled. "They're coming."  
  
Without a word, Linder grabbed her hand and pulled her to the window, where the fire escape led five stories to the ground. He shoved her outside and followed quickly, landing silently and closing the window behind them.  
  
When they reached the ground, they returned to the park and located the window that had been their portal and unhesitatingly stepped through, relieved to find themselves back in the cave. "We can't just leave it open like that," Blaise spoke for the first time, startling Kyrie. The daemon was beautiful, wild and stately, with a low, clear voice and unfathomable ocher eyes that reflected Linder's.  
  
Linder turned to the window and reached out a hand, running his fingertips along the edge of the slice in the air. A distracted look came over his beautiful face, and Kyrie recognized the concentration that she experienced every time she consulted the alethiometer. Amazed, she watched as he made a pinching motion, pulling together the wounded surfaces, and the window began to shut. Before long, the window had disappeared, and one of the last remaining thresholds between worlds had been sealed.  
  
"You en't supposed to know how to do that," Kyrie accused the boy, and he laughed.  
  
"It sort of came naturally," he answered. Kyrie shook her head.  
  
"That's magic," she said warily. "Mum told me that the sign of the knife- bearer is two fingers missing on one hand, and you seem to have all yours. The knife didn't choose you, you chose it and it accepted your ownership. It's witchcraft, that." She followed him back across the river and pulled the flower that Ruda Skadi had given her out of her rucksack.  
  
Before Linder could protest, she called, "Ruda Skadi, it's not urgent, but please come."  
  
"What did you do that for?" Linder demanded angrily. "You can't just disturb witches whenever you feel like it, especially not in the middle of the night, they're far more important than we are."  
  
Kyrie shot him a scathing look. "Of course they're not," she returned. "This is a matter of Original Sin and I en't gonna waste time." She refused to talk to him even after he apologized, and so they sat, alone, and waited for Ruta Skadi. 


	5. The Witches' Spell

They were not disappointed. Soon, two young women appeared, one Ruta Skadi with light blonde hair shining and the other...  
  
"Serefina Pekkala!" Kyrie cried, and rushed to hug the witch, who held out her arms and laughed.  
  
"Kyrie, how much you have grown," she said approvingly, and nodded politely to Linder, a strange secret smile on her face. She glanced quickly at her companion.  
  
Ruta Skadi had her mouth slightly open and her eyes pleading, as if she was longing to divulge a secret but could not bring herself to do so. She shook her head slightly, to clear it, and spoke. "You summoned me?"  
  
"We have the knife," Kyrie said proudly. "But it's, well, it's broken."  
  
"I know," Serefina returned. "I made Will break it so that he would not be able to cut any more. I was convinced that the knife was pure evil, because it creates a Specter every time it makes a window, and the windows themselves are tears in the worlds out of which dust can leak. But now there's a need for the knife, Fate itself if calling for it's subtle powers, and I must obey Fate. We must make it whole again."  
  
Linder's eyes shone. "How?" he asked readily.  
  
"A spell," Ruta Skadi answered. "Now. Kyrie was right, there is no time to waste."  
  
The other witch used her branch of pine-cloud to draw a large circle on the forest floor, and both witches stepped inside, holding the bag that the knife was in. Suspending a wooden bowl in midair, Serefina poured the contents of the bag inside, and with a simple gesture, white flames arose knee-high around the outline of the circle.  
  
Chanting, Serefina and Ruta Skadi walked around the bowl, their daemons wheeling overhead around the scorching ring of fire.  
  
"Knife! The earth is your mother, steel drawn from her deepest core  
  
Has formed you sharp and wounding, yet broken you lie helpless  
  
Your remnants, ashes and bright dust will rise at your mother's call  
  
Knife! Commanded to rebirth, obey your destiny."  
  
Linder stood enchanted, watching as the shards trembled in the bowl, and the witches repeated their spell. Suddenly, he felt a burst of energy in his limbs that left him trembling, and the pieces of the Subtle Knife rose in the air and rearranged themselves into their former glory. The bowl dropped to the ground, the fire flickered and smoked until the last flame had died, and Serefina Pekkala emerged from the mist, holding the knife solemnly and reverently.  
  
She gave it to Linder. "You are its bearer now," she said. His fingers closed over the hilt, accepting his fate.  
  
"In the name of the Father!" A cry rang out through the peaceful forest, and Ruta Skadi yelled. The others spun around to see the angel that Kyrie and Linder had encountered earlier with its enormous hands around the witch's neck, swiftly strangling her. 


	6. Death and Understanding

Sergi, her daemon, was fluttering weakly around, trying to reach her outstretched hands as she cried, "Yambe-Akka!" She was appealing to the goddess who appeared to witches to take their souls when they died, a welcoming, happy woman who soothingly guided them to their final destination.  
  
Linder roughly uttered a hushed cry and dashed to the witch queen's aid, plunging the knife into the angel's shoulder. With a howl, the angel vanished, and Ruta Skadi dropped to the ground.  
  
"I know," Linder whispered hoarsely. "I just realized." He knelt beside the dying witch.  
  
Confused, Kyrie hugged Khan to her, and Serefina put a hand on her shoulder.  
  
"Linder, my son," Ruta Skadi breathed, and suddenly Kyrie understood. Furious at the witch, she took a step forward, then remembered the queen was dying and there was no use in harboring grudges.  
  
"Come with me," Serefina said softly. "We should leave Linder and his mother alone for now." The witch and the girl walked in the opposite direction.  
  
"Ruta Skadi was my grandfather's lover," Kyrie accused. "She shouldn't have slept with Lord Daire also."  
  
The woman shook her head, reminiscing about the affairs of her youth, one intelligent, handsome young man in particular. "Witches cannot marry, Kyrie," she said. "And yet, with our passionate natures, we often fall desperately in love. I did so with Farder Coram, but had to stand silently by and watch as he grew older, took Ma Costa as his wife, and had two children."  
  
"Still…" Kyrie muttered. "Linder is half witch, then?"  
  
"More than half. He has two witches in his background." Serefina smiled sadly.  
  
"Is that how he became the bearer without losing his fingers?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Kyrie mulled this over. "Wait, did you say he has two witches in his background? Is Lord Daire a witch?"  
  
"No," Serefina laughed. "His grandmother on his father's side is a witch."  
  
"Isn't Ma Costa his father's mother?"  
  
"No…" Serefina trailed off, considering whether or not she should finish the story. She shook her head and threw caution away. "I am his father's mother, and Kyrie Silvertongue, you are half witch also," Serefina replied, studying the girl's face as she absorbed this news, a mixture of suspicion, surprise, and uncertainty.  
  
"You slept with Farder Coram? Lord Daire is your son? I en't a witch," Kyrie replied, jumbling her sentences in bewilderment. "How? My father couldn't have been, and I know my mum wasn't. She didn't fly about on cloud-pine and she never did spells. Pantalaimon couldn't go far from her."  
  
"Yes, I did sleep with Farder Coram, yes, Lord Daire is my son, who I gave to Ma Costa to raise as her own, and are you sure Pantalaimon couldn't?" Serefina gently prodded. "He could, but he didn't want to. Lyra once had to enter the world of the dead, and in doing so, she had to leave her daemon behind. Therefore, she stretched the bond between her daemon and herself so far that she became a witch. That's the main difference between witches and humans… we can temporarily separate our daemons, our souls, from our bodies and spirits, while humans cannot."  
  
Khan, as a lion, was striding beside Kyrie, and she tightened her fingers in his thick mane. "Khan can't go far from me," she replied.  
  
"It comes with time," Serefina sighed. "You haven't been through an ordeal that all witches have to go through in order to have this ability."  
  
"Wait," a voice called, low and heavy, and Linder was beside them. "My… Ruta Skadi is dead, and her body lies by the river. Queen Serefina, I have left it for you to take care of in the traditional witch fashion."  
  
Serefina Pekkala nodded. "I shall do so, Prince." A moment later, she had taken to the air, and the two children were alone again.  
  
"Try it," Kyrie said quickly, and Linder knew what she meant. He sighed, and crouched for a while with the knife in his hand, ready to lapse into the trancelike state from which the worlds were accessible. But it never came.  
  
"It en't me, it's the knife!" he gasped. "It en't the same, it can't do it anymore!" With a moan, he let the knife slip from his fingers and into the dirt. "So, what do we do now?" Linder said tonelessly, hopelessly. He looked up and was taken aback as he saw the glitter in Kyrie's eyes.  
  
"We fix it. By ourselves. With magic," she answered, and he saw that she meant everything she said. 


End file.
